472 THE BIOCOSMOS HISTORICAL. 



many possibilities lurking in the transmitted 

 germ-cell, which under right conditions spring 

 into reality. In Mendelism a submerged world 

 of inheritance is uncovered and made to ap- 

 pear. The individual is shown to have a 

 varied power of procreation transmitted from 

 the ancestors. Variation is not merely con- 

 tinuous but discontinuous, to use a term of 

 the Mendelians. Doubtless every sexed indi- 

 vidual is a hybrid more or less composite and 

 is made up of inherited unit-characters thou- 

 sandfold, and so may beget individuals spe- 

 cifically different from itself. The more com- 

 plete and higher the evolution, the more com- 

 plex and diversified is the product; hence we 

 have to think that the most developed organ- 

 ism has in it the potentialities of the widest 

 variation. Man, even if he does not produce 

 the greatest diversity of shape and color, pro- 

 duces the greatest inner diversity of char- 

 acter in a single natural species. No telling 

 what may break up from that underworld of 

 generations. Still behind all this varied play 

 of individuals we have to keep asking whence 

 comes this power of individuation, and what 

 is its place in the All. Ultimately the germ- 

 cell, however small, is the potential universe 

 in its creative process. 



